Connections

The War: In the three stories we have read so far, the struggles of life after war is a large part of the character's everyday lives. Salinger, a war veteran, relates the characters struggles to his own life. In The Perfect Day for a Bananafish, Seymour Glass had post traumatic stress disorder from participating in combat. This affected his everyday life by changing the way he sees the world, such as yellow being innocence and blue being corruption. In Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, Eloise life has changed drastically because of the war. While being in the war, Walt who Eloise loved, died in an explosion. This affected Eloise significantly in the fact that she was never able to find true love again. In Just Before the War with the Eskimos, Both Eric and Franklin worked in an airplane factory while the war took place. Eric does not seem to want to talk about his former work and Franklin refuses to go back to work.

The Writing Style: In the first three stories of Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger writes them in a certain way. The character description is never released immediately at the beginning of the story and the connection between the characters is often vague to begin with and even at the end as well. Over the course of the short story, Salinger slowly releases small pieces of information that moves the story forward. When reading the story, it may be overwhelming or even confusing to follow along. The purpose or point of the story cannot be found without trying to understand and depict the connections.  In the case of the three stories, in order to understand one must look at the forest instead of the individual trees.

Character Development: In the three short stories, all of the main characters have something that they have to deal with on a daily basis. Seymour is constantly battling the affects of war. Eloise is trying to cope with the loss of the one person she truly loved and is struggling moving forward with her life. Ginnie seems to be fixated on small pieces of information but is learning how to manage that. All three of them have something that is holding them back and is hindering their life moving forward.